Comments

I'm going to post an updated version of the same message I wrote as the second post on last season's thread this time last year, by providing links back to the respecitive threads that covered radio football coverage in previous seasons:

Thanks Ian. The big talking point going into the 2012/13 season as far as national radio football coverage is concerned has to be the FA radio rights contract, which is due for renewal having expired after the England v Belgium friendly international last month. Previously BBC Radio held exclusivity over the contract since 2002/03, before which they shared full, non-exclusive rights to England's home internationals, the FA Cup and FA Community Shield with talkSPORT between 1998/99 and 2001/02 in effectively the same way they both hold rights to World Cups and European Championships.

While news of a new deal has not yet been publically announced, Stan Collymore has both tweeted and announced on-air at the end of tonight's Call Collymore that he will be part of talkSPORT's "live full commentary" on the Community Shield match between Manchester City and Chelsea on Sunday 12th August.

So unless Stan has errantly jumped the gun or is describing extended updates as commentary, it would appear that talkSPORT have won at least a share of the FA's new national radio contract from 2012/13 onwards. Hopefully the intricacies of the actual deal (whether rights have been sold exclusively, as bundles of matches or in a full, non-exclusive manner to numerous stations) will be clarified by the usual press sources in the next few days.

I wonder if a special deal may have been done for the Community Shield given the BBCs commitments elsewhere. I would expect 5 Live to be concentrating on the final day of the Olympics and I see there's an ODI between England and Scotland which I guess will be on Sports Extra.

On the commenatators front be interesting to see how 5 Live manage the switch to a single voice and which matches get 2 guys.

On talkSPORT will we hear more of John Roder, if his combination with Andy Gray at the Euro's was deemed a success perhaps they might use it again, Champions League maybe?

So Euro 2012 is over for me, after nine commentaries for talkSPORT. Throughly enjoyed returning to radio (after a significant gap!); and it looks as though that may not be the last work that I do for the station. Really good people behind the scenes at talkSPORT; Euro 2012 was a pleasure to be at, hope that came across if you heard any of it.

We raised this enquiry with David Holdsworth, Controller of English Regions, who explained:

“ he new Football League deal for BBC Local Radio is similar to the old one. The BBC pays a central fee to the Football League for access to the grounds of their 72 clubs, then individual BBC local radio station arrange their own commentary deals with clubs in their area. Stations have always been able to cover any game of any clubs, subject to permission of both clubs concerned.

The number and frequency of clubs’ covered in commentary depends though on a number of factors. These include production costs, available frequencies, levels of interest in those clubs and other sports of interest such as rugby taking place.”

I hope this helps and thank you again for taking the time to write to us.

We raised this enquiry with David Holdsworth, Controller of English Regions, who explained:

“ he new Football League deal for BBC Local Radio is similar to the old one. The BBC pays a central fee to the Football League for access to the grounds of their 72 clubs, then individual BBC local radio station arrange their own commentary deals with clubs in their area. Stations have always been able to cover any game of any clubs, subject to permission of both clubs concerned.

The number and frequency of clubs’ covered in commentary depends though on a number of factors. These include production costs, available frequencies, levels of interest in those clubs and other sports of interest such as rugby taking place.”

I hope this helps and thank you again for taking the time to write to us.

Kind Regards

Audrie Wilson

BBC Audience Services

It will be interesting to see what happens regards the local commentaries, with DQF potentially kicking in. I assume the BBC locals will still be able to opt out of network programming for football specials on a Tuesday / Wednesday should the plans be enacted.

It will be interesting to see what happens regards the local commentaries, with DQF potentially kicking in. I assume the BBC locals will still be able to opt out of network programming for football specials on a Tuesday / Wednesday should the plans be enacted.

I wonder if a special deal may have been done for the Community Shield given the BBCs commitments elsewhere. I would expect 5 Live to be concentrating on the final day of the Olympics and I see there's an ODI between England and Scotland which I guess will be on Sports Extra.

I didn't realise there was such a big clash, so thanks for putting the Community Shield in context with the wider sporting Sunday.

With that in mind, I think your theory that The FA, talkSPORT and Radio 5 Live may have come to a compromise given the circumstances is plausible. With Moz Dee having been out in Ukraine for Euro 2012 and with the major managerial players at 5 Live juggling coverage of that, Wimbledon and the Olympics at the moment, not to mention FA heads being at the former, it's entirely possible that the relevant people haven't had the chance to sit down and thrash out the full intricacies of the deal yet.

Given the particular scenario on Sunday 12th August and how it's widely expected that Radio 5 Live will not retain exclusivity and that talkSPORT will win at least a share of the rights (this presumes Absolute Radio or any of the quasi-nationals have not expressed a serious interest in the rights), it could have been deemed easiest to give talkSPORT this game given the problems accommodating it into the 5 Live schedule would pose, with a fuller breakdown of matches between the two stations under the new contract agreed ahead of the England v Ukraine World Cup qualifier in early September.

John Roder has stated on his website that it looks as though Euro 2012 may not be the last work he does for talkSPORT.

Pleased to hear that it looks likely that John Roder will be back on talkSPORT in 2012/13, I thought he had an excellent Euros and built up a solid on-air relationship with both Keys and Gray over a short space of time.

I think realistically there are two potential areas where we will hear Roder on talkSPORT next season. With John having ongoing Match of the Day commentary commitments going into the new season and with Sam Matterface under contract, it's highly unlikely we'll be hearing Roder doing Premier League commentaries on talkSPORT next season (except perhaps on the occasional Sunday when there is a double header of live matches).

Shaun's suggestion of Champions League games seems quite likely on the face of it. With four English clubs definitely in the Champions League group phase, talkSPORT could do as many as 12 UCL commentaries (maybe even one or two more than that should a British club draw a Russian or Ukrainian side, meaning they'd have to play the away game in the 5pm timeslot) during the first half of the season. If talkSPORT are taking their coverage seriously and doing all/most of their commentaries on-site including those on the continent, as they did in the second half of last season (and this year they won't have a costly OB in the autumn as they did in 2011 with the Rugby World Cup), then should they do two games per matchround, it's likely they'd need two commentary teams per week. Therefore we could see Keys, Roder and Gray heading out to an away game for an English club, with two editions of Keys & Gray as well as the commentary itself coming live from the continent, with the Saggers, Matterface and Collymore trio doing commentary on a game played in the UK on the previous/following night.

Alternatively, or perhaps as well as the above, should talkSPORT win significant FA Cup rights - by that I mean the ability to do more than one live match on an FA Cup Saturday or Sunday - there could be an opening for Roder to come in and do live games from third round weekend onwards. With ITV and ESPN holding FA Cup TV rights, Roder wouldn't be required by BBC TV as he is on league weekends, other than in the unlikely event of them needing him to do a game on the Football League Show (I expect they'd look to work around this and call upon a couple of their other freelancers in such a situation). Personally I don't see Roder being their England commentator should they win those rights given Matterface's contracted role and John's long-standing commitments on the TV world feed for South American World Cup qualifiers, but you never know.

I didn't realise there was such a big clash, so thanks for putting the Community Shield in context with the wider sporting Sunday.

With that in mind, I think your theory that The FA, talkSPORT and Radio 5 Live may have come to a compromise given the circumstances is plausible. With Moz Dee having been out in Ukraine for Euro 2012 and with the major managerial players at 5 Live juggling coverage of that, Wimbledon and the Olympics at the moment, not to mention FA heads being at the former, it's entirely possible that the relevant people haven't had the chance to sit down and thrash out the full intricacies of the deal yet.

Given the particular scenario on Sunday 12th August and how it's widely expected that Radio 5 Live will not retain exclusivity and that talkSPORT will win at least a share of the rights (this presumes Absolute Radio or any of the quasi-nationals have not expressed a serious interest in the rights), it could have been deemed easiest to give talkSPORT this game given the problems accommodating it into the 5 Live schedule would pose, with a fuller breakdown of matches between the two stations under the new contract agreed ahead of the England v Ukraine World Cup qualifier in early September.

Pleased to hear that it looks likely that John Roder will be back on talkSPORT in 2012/13, I thought he had an excellent Euros and built up a solid on-air relationship with both Keys and Gray over a short space of time.

I think realistically there are two potential areas where we will hear Roder on talkSPORT next season. With John having ongoing Match of the Day commentary commitments going into the new season and with Sam Matterface under contract, it's highly unlikely we'll be hearing Roder doing Premier League commentaries on talkSPORT next season (except perhaps on the occasional Sunday when there is a double header of live matches).

Shaun's suggestion of Champions League games seems quite likely on the face of it. With four English clubs definitely in the Champions League group phase, talkSPORT could do as many as 12 UCL commentaries (maybe even one or two more than that should a British club draw a Russian or Ukrainian side, meaning they'd have to play the away game in the 5pm timeslot) during the first half of the season. If talkSPORT are taking their coverage seriously and doing all/most of their commentaries on-site including those on the continent, as they did in the second half of last season (and this year they won't have a costly OB in the autumn as they did in 2011 with the Rugby World Cup), then should they do two games per matchround, it's likely they'd need two commentary teams per week. Therefore we could see Keys, Roder and Gray heading out to an away game for an English club, with two editions of Keys & Gray as well as the commentary itself coming live from the continent, with the Saggers, Matterface and Collymore trio doing commentary on a game played in the UK on the previous/following night.

Alternatively, or perhaps as well as the above, should talkSPORT win significant FA Cup rights - by that I mean the ability to do more than one live match on an FA Cup Saturday or Sunday - there could be an opening for Roder to come in and do live games from third round weekend onwards. With ITV and ESPN holding FA Cup TV rights, Roder wouldn't be required by BBC TV as he is on league weekends, other than in the unlikely event of them needing him to do a game on the Football League Show (I expect they'd look to work around this and call upon a couple of their other freelancers in such a situation). Personally I don't see Roder being their England commentator should they win those rights given Matterface's contracted role and John's long-standing commitments on the TV world feed for South American World Cup qualifiers, but you never know.

If Talksport get the FA Cup then they may need Roder as Matterface usually does ITV highlights shows. I would love talksport to get some of the FA Contract with 5 Live as I prefer talksport commentary to ITV

I didn't realise there was such a big clash, so thanks for putting the Community Shield in context with the wider sporting Sunday.

With that in mind, I think your theory that The FA, talkSPORT and Radio 5 Live may have come to a compromise given the circumstances is plausible. With Moz Dee having been out in Ukraine for Euro 2012 and with the major managerial players at 5 Live juggling coverage of that, Wimbledon and the Olympics at the moment, not to mention FA heads being at the former, it's entirely possible that the relevant people haven't had the chance to sit down and thrash out the full intricacies of the deal yet.

Given the particular scenario on Sunday 12th August and how it's widely expected that Radio 5 Live will not retain exclusivity and that talkSPORT will win at least a share of the rights (this presumes Absolute Radio or any of the quasi-nationals have not expressed a serious interest in the rights), it could have been deemed easiest to give talkSPORT this game given the problems accommodating it into the 5 Live schedule would pose, with a fuller breakdown of matches between the two stations under the new contract agreed ahead of the England v Ukraine World Cup qualifier in early September.

Pleased to hear that it looks likely that John Roder will be back on talkSPORT in 2012/13, I thought he had an excellent Euros and built up a solid on-air relationship with both Keys and Gray over a short space of time.

I think realistically there are two potential areas where we will hear Roder on talkSPORT next season. With John having ongoing Match of the Day commentary commitments going into the new season and with Sam Matterface under contract, it's highly unlikely we'll be hearing Roder doing Premier League commentaries on talkSPORT next season (except perhaps on the occasional Sunday when there is a double header of live matches).

Shaun's suggestion of Champions League games seems quite likely on the face of it. With four English clubs definitely in the Champions League group phase, talkSPORT could do as many as 12 UCL commentaries (maybe even one or two more than that should a British club draw a Russian or Ukrainian side, meaning they'd have to play the away game in the 5pm timeslot) during the first half of the season. If talkSPORT are taking their coverage seriously and doing all/most of their commentaries on-site including those on the continent, as they did in the second half of last season (and this year they won't have a costly OB in the autumn as they did in 2011 with the Rugby World Cup), then should they do two games per matchround, it's likely they'd need two commentary teams per week. Therefore we could see Keys, Roder and Gray heading out to an away game for an English club, with two editions of Keys & Gray as well as the commentary itself coming live from the continent, with the Saggers, Matterface and Collymore trio doing commentary on a game played in the UK on the previous/following night.

Alternatively, or perhaps as well as the above, should talkSPORT win significant FA Cup rights - by that I mean the ability to do more than one live match on an FA Cup Saturday or Sunday - there could be an opening for Roder to come in and do live games from third round weekend onwards. With ITV and ESPN holding FA Cup TV rights, Roder wouldn't be required by BBC TV as he is on league weekends, other than in the unlikely event of them needing him to do a game on the Football League Show (I expect they'd look to work around this and call upon a couple of their other freelancers in such a situation). Personally I don't see Roder being their England commentator should they win those rights given Matterface's contracted role and John's long-standing commitments on the TV world feed for South American World Cup qualifiers, but you never know.

If Talksport get the FA Cup then they may need Roder as Matterface usually does ITV highlights shows. I would love talksport to get some of the FA Contract with 5 Live as I prefer talksport commentary to ITV. I would also like to hear Andy Gray doing more commentary next season and if they get the FA Contract they could have John & Andy on FA Cup with Sam & Stan on Premier League and Sam & Andy on Champions League.

If Talksport get the FA Cup then they may need Roder as Matterface usually does ITV highlights shows.

I know some people tend to rank TV work more highly/as being more valuable than radio work, but if such a scenario were to happen I genuinely think Sam would prioritise talkSPORT. After all, he is contracted to the station (which is why he's presenting things like the All Sports Show this month) which enables him to do 70-85 commentaries per season, as opposed to his freelance work on ITV for whom he's made a dozen appearances at most. I'm sure he knows which side his bread is buttered on, so to speak.

Perhaps they'd look to come to a compromise with Sam commentating for talkSPORT on earlier games or ones closer to London, allowing him to get into wherever ITV put their highlights show together in order to dub on a commentary on a goals edit for their Saturday evening highlights show. ITV have plenty of freelancers readily available to call upon to do on-site commentaries for their highlights shows, indeed part of the reason why this opportunity came Sam's way will surely have been that he wasn't required by talkSPORT on FA Cup weekends as he is on Premier League ones and so was at a loose end on those Saturdays if you like.

This is purely speculation of course, but should talkSPORT secure the kind of full, non-exclusive FA Cup deal they had a decade ago; you could realistically see the Sam and Stan, John and Andy and Nigel Pearson and Alvin Martin pairings all commentating on games on FA Cup Third to Fifth Round Saturdays and Sundays.

I know some people tend to rank TV work more highly/as being more valuable than radio work, but if such a scenario were to happen I genuinely think Sam would prioritise talkSPORT. After all, he is contracted to the station (which is why he's presenting things like the All Sports Show this month) which enables him to do 70-85 commentaries per season, as opposed to his freelance work on ITV for whom he's made a dozen appearances at most. I'm sure he knows which side his bread is buttered on, so to speak.

Perhaps they'd look to come to a compromise with Sam commentating for talkSPORT on earlier games or ones closer to London, allowing him to get into wherever ITV put their highlights show together in order to dub on a commentary on a goals edit for their Saturday evening highlights show. ITV have plenty of freelancers readily available to call upon to do on-site commentaries for their highlights shows, indeed part of the reason why this opportunity came Sam's way will surely have been that he wasn't required by talkSPORT on FA Cup weekends as he is on Premier League ones and so was at a loose end on those Saturdays if you like.

This is purely speculation of course, but should talkSPORT secure the kind of full, non-exclusive FA Cup deal they had a decade ago; you could realistically see the Sam and Stan, John and Andy and Nigel Pearson and Alvin Martin pairings all commentating on games on FA Cup Third to Fifth Round Saturdays and Sundays.

your suggestion seems sensible. I guess the main reason Matterface did commentary highlights for ITV was that he wasn't doing commentaries on TS that weekend.
i'd be astonished if Matterface wasn't heavily involved in talksport's FA coverage (should they get any). I'm sure any commentator would want to commentate on things like england internationals/FA cup finals.

I've been calling him Chris Parrett in previous threads whenever he's commentated on Jackland games for Swansea Sound, but confirmation to me at least arrives in the fact Chris Parrott has a Twitter account.

The only Wednesday night game listed, Chelsea v Reading on 22nd August, comes talkSPORT's way due to it being moved to that evening because of Chelsea's involvement in the UEFA Super Cup. There's not a midweek matchround until the week of Wednesday 28th November, where as things stand talkSPORT will have a choice of Chelsea v Fulham or Everton v Arsenal.

I've not looked at the fixture list fully but I presume this is just a listing of the TV games picked today for the Saturday 5.30pm and Sunday 1.30pm timeslots and so doesn't account for local derby games likely to be moved to Sunday teatimes which could see us get a few Sunday double headers. talkSPORT don't have all that many blockbuster games during the first third of the season but September will be a good month for them - they will be doing commentaries on Liverpool v Arsenal, Liverpool v Manchester United and Manchester United v Tottenham Hotspur.

One for 'Shrewn' or, 'The Difference', but The New Saints have made a rock/Indie song about their up and coming European adventure, so, which of the Radio Shropshire commentators is it you hear in this Track?

Obviously, they can't dance in the streets of TNS though, and I doubt they could get a rhyme out of Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain

A good first game, a strong September but minus the Tyne-Wear derby and City vs Spurs a fairly weak late Aug, Oct & Nov for TS.

I wouldn't say that talkSPORT's line-up of commentaries is particularly weaker (or stronger) than it was this time last season. Only four games of the 22 listed don't involve at least one of last season's top six and/or Liverpool, giving them plenty of attractive games from a commercial perspective (although this can be a double-edged sword as often we see the top teams mounting a comfortable lead by half-time in their fixtures against mid-table/lower half clubs). I'm sure UTV will be fairly pleased with the way the TV selections have worked out for them.

One for 'Shrewn' or, 'The Difference', but The New Saints have made a rock/Indie song about their up and coming European adventure, so, which of the Radio Shropshire commentators is it you hear in this Track?

I'm not enough of a listener to Sport on BBC Radio Shropshire to recognise the voice of the commentator in question, so perhaps Shrewn is your man for this one.

As an educated guess I'd say it might be Nick Southall, who is usually their AFC Telford commentator but commentated on all of those The New Saints games Radio Shropshire did commentary on during both of their European campaigns over the past two seasons. So if those clips are genuine commentaries broadcast relatively recently, it'll likely be him. Out of interest, do you know if Radio Shropshire will be doing commentary on the home leg of their Champions League qualifier against Helsingborgs later this month?

I wouldn't say that talkSPORT's line-up of commentaries is particularly weaker (or stronger) than it was this time last season. Only four games of the 22 listed don't involve at least one of last season's top six and/or Liverpool, giving them plenty of attractive games from a commercial perspective (although this can be a double-edged sword as often we see the top teams mounting a comfortable lead by half-time in their fixtures against mid-table/lower half clubs). I'm sure UTV will be fairly pleased with the way the TV selections have worked out for them.

I'm not enough of a listener to Sport on BBC Radio Shropshire to recognise the voice of the commentator in question, so perhaps Shrewn is your man for this one.

As an educated guess I'd say it might be Nick Southall, who is usually their AFC Telford commentator but commentated on all of those The New Saints games Radio Shropshire did commentary on during both of their European campaigns over the past two seasons. So if those clips are genuine commentaries broadcast relatively recently, it'll likely be him. Out of interest, do you know if Radio Shropshire will be doing commentary on the home leg of their Champions League qualifier against Helsingborgs later this month?

I guess it depends on how you look at it Diff. last year TS had the Manchester derby in the first half season (and did they have liverpool v everton as well?) even if they didn't they have o had that game in the past. with Liverpool now being an also-ran in terms of the league, its arguable that the Manchester derby is a bigger draw than the Man u v Liverpool match. that said, I agree that overall TS will be happy enough with their set of games. only one swansea game though lol!

UTV station Tower FM will continue with Bolton commentaries despite the clubs relegation. They get the bonus of 8 extra league match commentaries following their relegation. Sister station Wish FM will also continue with Wigan Athletic games.

One for 'Shrewn' or, 'The Difference', but The New Saints have made a rock/Indie song about their up and coming European adventure, so, which of the Radio Shropshire commentators is it you hear in this Track?

Obviously, they can't dance in the streets of TNS though, and I doubt they could get a rhyme out of Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain

As an educated guess I'd say it might be Nick Southall, who is usually their AFC Telford commentator but commentated on all of those The New Saints games Radio Shropshire did commentary on during both of their European campaigns over the past two seasons. So if those clips are genuine commentaries broadcast relatively recently, it'll likely be him. Out of interest, do you know if Radio Shropshire will be doing commentary on the home leg of their Champions League qualifier against Helsingborgs later this month?

The Hon Member for Walsall has got it. Nick "he's interviewed me you know" Southall!

I guess it depends on how you look at it Diff. last year TS had the Manchester derby in the first half season (and did they have liverpool v everton as well?) even if they didn't they have o had that game in the past. with Liverpool now being an also-ran in terms of the league, its arguable that the Manchester derby is a bigger draw than the Man u v Liverpool match. that said, I agree that overall TS will be happy enough with their set of games. only one swansea game though lol!

talkSPORT had the first Manchester derby in the league during 2011/12 and in 2010/11 (their first season of holding Saturday 5.30pm and Sunday 1.30pm rights) they had rights to both Liverpool v Manchester United and that dreadful 0-0 Manchester derby played on a Wednesday night.

While Liverpool didn't have their best season last year, in commercial terms they are the league's biggest draw behind only Manchester United, so being able to do live games involving them is something that will boost talkSPORT's audience figures if nothing else.

Of their first 22 commentaries, for me their line-up starts out very strong for the first two months and only has a couple of really weak games (their first Sunday games in both October and November). Obviously all five of September's games will generate big audiences and they have a trio of Chelsea fixtures in August culminating with Newcastle's visit to Stamford Bridge. Of the less obvious big matches, Stoke City v Arsenal is always an interesting clash of styles and in Aston Villa v Norwich City you have Paul Lambert facing his former club. It might be that 5 Live have slightly more "blockbuster" matches (I haven't checked their fixture list to be perfectly honest) but talkSPORT aren't exactly short on games that either include the league's bigger clubs and/or possess interesting angles.